Battle of Algiers (1966); 9/10, 9/11; 7:15pm

MSMM
presents

Battle of Algiers

Weds. Sept. 10th 7:15pm

Thurs. Sept. 11th 7:15pm

The Academy of Music Theatre
Runtime: 2 hrs 5 mins


The most electrifyingly timely movie playing in New York was made in 1965. Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers is famous, but for some time it’s been available only in washed-out prints with poorly translated, white-on-white subtitles. The newly translated
and subtitled 35-millimeter print is presumably the version that was privately screened in August 2004 for military personnel by the Pentagon as a field guide to fighting terrorism. Ironically, Pontecorvo’s epic was once used by the Black Panthers as a training film. In fact, not much in the current Iraq situation is historically comparable to the late-fifties Algerian struggle for independence
dramatized in The Battle of Algiers, but its anatomy of terror remains unsurpassed—and, woefully, ever fresh.
“If you want to understand what’s happening right now in Iraq, I recommend
The Battle of Algiers.” – ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI, Former National Security Advisor